Abstract
Adolescent parents are at risk for poorer school-related outcomes relative to their non-parenting peers. In part, poorer academic outcomes may reflect adolescents’ need to balance multiple roles within systems that are unaccommodating to their unique needs. Concomitantly, adolescent parents hold cultural and familial assets that can help them achieve positive school-related outcomes (i.e., school belonging, aspirations, and expectations) despite experiences of marginalization. The current study explores the relationship between adolescent parents’ reports of stigma (e.g., negative treatment due to their parenting status) and their school-related outcomes; it will also test whether social support and ethnic-racial identity (ERI) serve as protective factors in these associations. To address our study goals, we employed cross-sectional data from a sample of adolescents who were parents or expecting a child (Mage = 16.87, SD = 1.30; n = 303 girls; n = 74 boys). Our results revealed that ERI, but not social support, moderated the negative effect of stigma on students’ school belonging and academic expectations. High levels of ERI buffered the negative effect of stigma on students’ reports of school belonging. However, the negative effect of stigma on students’ academic expectations was only significant in the context of high ERI. Results highlight the importance of addressing adolescent parent stigma in schools while also demonstrating that ERI may have a differential effect on diverse academic outcomes.